


The Last Day of Before

by n0idea2709



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abandonment, Aliens, Gen, sort of like the martian but not really lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27456883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n0idea2709/pseuds/n0idea2709
Summary: lol idk what this is
Kudos: 1





	The Last Day of Before

It wasn’t meant to go like this.

It was never meant to go like this.

I know the commander told me not to go, but how was I meant to pass up that sort of opportunity? We were the thirteenth manned mission to Mars; no-one was ever going to remember us. And being stationed only a hundred kilometres from the last known location of a mysteriously missing forty year old exploration probe? What was I meant to do? Pass up a chance at finding out what those weird click, click, click noises were that it picked up on just before it died? Pass up a chance at being remembered?

No-one’s ever going to remember us now.

Well, they might, but for the wrong reasons.

‘SIX ASTRONAUTS KILLED IN SANDSTORM HORROR’

Well, five, but soon to be six.

They don’t know that, though. 

Probably would have been easier if I’d just died with the rest of them. Would have been so much less painful than traipsing back home, tail between my legs in defeat, to find Home torn to pieces. Massive hole blown in the side, completely depressurized, comms shot to all hell and the crew of Juno 13 suffocated in their beds.

Except for me.

It's just me left. 

Me, me, me.

I’ve run out of food, out of energy, out of time. It’s been over a month now since I came Home, and the rations I smuggled out on my fruitless escapade are long gone. Starvation was never the plan, but I guess it;s fitting, huh? I guess it’s what I get for not being here when my team needed me. No less than I deserve.

It was never meant to go like this.

And now I’m here, alone in my bunk, Home quieter than it ever should be, the graves of my friends all around me. I had to stow all their things away. It was a knife in my heart to wake up to Emma’s stupid music poster tacked up on the wall, the sappy romance poem that Mike had been reading dog-eared an tucked under his pillow.

And now it’s just me. Me and my million regrets.

If I’d been here, maybe I could have done something, anything. I’m the team engineer, for God’s sake. Instead I was out in the unknown, red carpet of sand below me, sea of stars above me, chasing dreams and that elusive click, click, click while my friends choked in their beds.

And now it’s just me, my crushing guilt and the monster of my hunger as it gnaws my insides out. 

And the noises.

I think I’m going crazy. I’ve heard that’s what happens when you’re alone for too long.

In the dead of night, I hear it sometimes, when I’m holed up in my bunk.

Click. Click. Click.

Nothing but a hallucination of a dying man. If I was going to find the source of it, I would have found it when I went looking, not when I’m starving alone on my deathbed. It’s nothing but an auditory anomaly to fill the deafening silence. The gaping hole where they should be. Even if I thought it wasn’t anything but a figment of my delirious imagination, I don’t have the energy to go chasing conspiracies anymore. That gate slammed shut the day my food stores ran dry.

Click. Click. Click.

God, I just want to be gone.

I don’t want to be here anymore, with just ghosts and my own twisted mind for company.

I won’t be here for much longer, though.

My eyes slide shut. I can’t hold them open anymore. To be honest… I don’t want to.

It was never meant to go like this.

.

.

.

The hiss of an airlock. The scuttle of too many feet.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

**Author's Note:**

> lol idk what this is


End file.
